Indian Journal of History of Science, 51.4 (2016) 679-690 DOI: 10.

16943/ijhs/2016/v51/i4/41244

From Balkh to Baghdad: Indian Science and the Birth of

the Islamic Golden Age in the Eighth Century
Dominik Wujastyk*
(Received 07 December 2015)

Abstract
This paper explores the evidence for the intellectual and cultural connections between North-
West India, Bactria (or Tokharistan), and Baghdad especially through the study of the history of medicine.
Key words: Bactria, Baghdad, Balkh, Barmakids, Cakua, Caraka, Central Asia, Dioscorides,
Hariścandra, Hospitals, Isidore of Charax, Kalhaa, Kashmir, Mediterranean, Parthia, Periplus of the
Erythrean Sea, Pramukha, Tokharistan

1. INTRODUCTION Indus River is familiar to all historians (Majumdar,

The late first-century BCE caravan route
from Antioch on the Mediterranean to Kandahar
in modern Afghanistan provided opportunities for
the exchange of medical knowledge between north
India and the Parthian and Mediterranean worlds.
Sanskrit literature provides evidence for the
existence of Indian physicians in Balkh. The
Islamic invasion of Balkh in Tokharistan in about
725 CE, resulted in the relocation of the originally
Buddhist Khālid ibn Pramukha (b. 709, d. 781–2)
from Balkh to Abbasid Baghdad. Ibn Khālid had
a cultural background can be connected with the
Sanskrit and specifically ayurvedic education that
his father received in Kashmir. These cultural
influences had a bearing on the medical treatises
that were translated from Sanskrit into Arabic in
eighth-century Baghdad, and may have informed
the building of one of the first Islamic hospitals in
Baghdad.
2. THE PARTHIAN STATIONS
The march of Alexander the Great (356
BCE–232 BCE) across the Middle East and to the
1988, v. 2, pp.43–51). The later Graeco-Bactrian
kingdoms of Gandhara produced art, coins and
inspired literature such as the famous
philosophical discussion between the Buddhist
Nāgasena and the Greek Menander, recorded in
The Questions of King Milinda (Milindapanha)
in the centuries preceding the Common Era
(Narain, 1957; Rhys Davids, 1890–1894;
Trenckner, 1880).
But even after the decline of the Graeco-
Bactrian communities in the centuries that
followed Alexander’s invasion, communications
between North India and the eastern
Mediterranean continued. In the first century BCE,
the Greek author Isidore of Charax (fl. 26 BCE –
0 CE) wrote a short treatise describing the caravan
route joining the Mediterranean to Afghanistan.
Isidore lived during the reign of the Roman
emperor Augustus (63 BCE–16 CE), and the
emperor had commissioned him to write a
geographical work derived from his son’s military
travels to Armenia. The Parthian Stations may be
an extract from this work. The route that Isidore

* Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity, Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, Canada,
Email: wujastyk@ualberta.ca
680 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Fig. 1. The Parthian Stations: Antioch to Kandahar, 1st Century BCE1

Fig. 2. Roman trade in the subcontinent according to the Periplus Maris Erythraei, 1st century CE

1
Google map by Dominik Wujastyk, at http://tinyurl.com/parthianstations
 FROM BALKH TO BAGHDAD 681

described started from Antioch, modern Hatay in

Turkey, near the Mediterranean coast. Then, the
route proceeded to Birijik, thence down the
Euphrates to Hit and across to Seleucia on the
Tigris, a short distance below Baghdad; thence by
the modern caravan route from Baghdad to
Hamadan, Teheran and Nishapur, thence
southward to Herat and Lake Helmund, and finally
eastward to Kandahar (Schoff, 1914).
This overland route described by Isidore
predates the sea route from the Red Sea
documented from the Periplus of the Erythrean
Sea and later sources (Schoff 1912). It establishes
a direct physical link between India and Bactria
at the time when we think the early form of the
medical encyclopedia today called the
Carakasahitā, or The Compendium of Caraka,
was taking its earliest form.2
One piece of verifiable medical
communication from India to Greece that took Fig. 3. A page from the Vienna Dioscorides MS, 512 CE.
Solanum nigrum: Black Nightshade. Image source:
place at this time was the transmission of plant http://tinyurl.com/UofVirginia
lore that appeared in the Materia Medica of
Pedanius Dioscorides in the first century CE.3
Dioscorides lived in the city of Anazarbus, very medical concepts do not show clear verifiable
close to Antioch, just a few hours journey north, evidence of borrowings of major concepts or
today, on the Turkish Mediterranean coast from practices in either direction. This is quite different
the starting point of Isidore’s caravan route. from the situation with astrological and
Perhaps the earliest known illustrations of Indian astronomical literature in Sanskrit, where Greek
medicinal plants are those preserved in the Vienna
borrowings in the second century CE onwards are
Dioscorides manuscript created in 512 CE and
well documented (Duke, 2005, 2007; Pingree,
presently in the National Library in Vienna.4 The
1976, 1981).
artist of the Vienna Dioscorides manuscript
probably based his illustrations on those from the
Rhizotomicon of Crateuas of Pergamon (1st 3. EARLY PHYSICIANS IN BALKH
century BCE).5 Bactria, however, the country of the city
However, in spite of the evident of Balkh and the surrounding area, was well within
opportunities for cultural exchange, detailed the geographical and cultural ambit of the earliest
comparisons of Hippocratic and Ayurvedic Ayurvedic authors.

2
On the dating of the layers of the Carakasahitā see Meulenbeld 1999–2002: IA, pt. 1 ch. 10
3
Edition: Wellmann 1907–1914, tr.: Beck 2005. Accessible online tr. Osbaldeston and Wood 2000.
4
Codex Vindobonensis med. gr. 1. See Mazal 1998–1999.
5
Further research is needed into the Indian plants cited in the Materia Medica. On Dioscorides’ sources, see Allbutt 1921: 366–
70, et passim.
682 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
This will be relevant to a later argument.
4. CARAKA ON THE INHABITANTS OF BALKH
The Compendium of Caraka, for example,
that reached its present form in about the second
century CE, included the opinion of physicians
from Balkh in its discussions. For example, when
discussing dietary habits, the Caraka described
the medical features of salt, and noted that:
If it is used too much, it brings about lethargy,
slackness, and weakness, in the body.
The people of those villages, towns, cities, and
regions where it is used all the time are extremely
exhausted, and have slack flesh and blood. They
are unable to bear suffering. For example, people
from Balkh, Saurāra, Sindh and Sauvīra. They
even consume salt with milk.
In those regions of the earth that are excessively
saline, plants, shrubs, trees and forests will not
grow, or will have little lustre, because it is
damaged by salt.
For that reason, salt should not be used too much.
Because even people who have a great natural
affinity for salt go bald, grey, completely hairless,
and have premature wrinkles (Carakasahitā,
vimānasthāna 1.18 Ācārya, 1941, p. 234).
In another passage, the Caraka describes
how a number of sages gathered to enjoy
themselves, this time in the beautiful forest of
Caitraratha (Ca. Sū.26; Ācārya, 1941, p.135). One
feature of this debate is that some of the sages are
briefly characterized, and amongst them is
“Kākāyana the best physician from Balkh.” Their
discussion, characterized as a tale (kathā),
discussed the number of essences (rasa) that may
be thought to exist. The main arguments of the
debate can be summarized as follows.6
• Bhadrakāpya asserted that there is only one
essence: water.
• Śākunteya said there are two: eliminating and
pacifying.
6
Paraphrase from Ca.sū.26.3 ff.
• Pūrāka said there are three: eliminating,
pacifying, and equalizing.
• Hirayāka, four: tasty and healthy, tasty and
unhealthy, nasty and healthy, nasty and
unhealthy.
• Kumāraśirā Bharadvāja, five: derived from
earth, water, fire, wind, space.
• Vāryovida, six: heavy/light, cold/hot, oily/dry
• Nimi, seven: sweet, sour, salt, pungent, bitter,
astringent, alkaline.
• Baiśa of the Dāmārgava family, eight: Nimi’s
seven, plus an unmanifest one.
• Kākāyana, innumerable, because the
underlying factors such as substrate, property,
action, and taste are innumerable.
• Punarvasu Ātreya asserted that there are six
essences. In a tangled passage he managed to
bring all the answers of the previous
interlocutors into relationship with his
assertion of six essences, thereby including
everyone’s answer. Ātreya then delivered a
lecture about the essences.
At the time of the events recorded in the
Caraka, then, Balkh was unproblematically part
of the cultural sphere, and physicians from Balkh
were perceived as valid authorities and
participants in medical debate and opinion.
5. HARIśCANDRA OF BALKH
The Kick (Skt. Pādatāitaka) of Śyāmilaka
is a comic monologue written in Kashmir probably
in the second half of the fifth century (Dezsó and
Vasudeva 2009: xvii–xix.). It is of interest to us in
the present context because the author makes
several references to Bactria.
The protagonist of The Kick meets a
physician in the street called Hariścandra.
 FROM BALKH TO BAGHDAD
Hariścandra is called “a man from Balkh (Skt.
Bālhika)” and the son of Īśanacandra, the
descendant of Kakāyana (Schokker, 1966, p.87;
Schokker and Worsley, 1976, p.13).7 See the
family lineage in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Hariścandra’s lineage
This is interesting for two reasons. First,
the name Hariścandra is a name to conjure with,
since a Hariścandra was amongst the earliest
commentators on the Compendium of Caraka, and
was much quoted and praised by later authors
(Meulenbeld, 1999–2002: 1A.187–90.). But his
work was lost, and only a few fragments survive
in manuscript form. The date of this commentator
Hariścandra is hard to pin down, but citations by
other authors prove that he must have lived before
CE 600 and perhaps even before Dhabala, a
redactor of the Caraka who lived in the period
CE 300–500 (Meulenbeld 1999–2002, p.141).
This Hariścandra is often titled “Bhaāra” or
“Bhaāraka,” titles that are commonly associated
with northerners from Kashmir or Bactria.
Given the elasticity of the dates that can
be reconstructed for the commentator Hariścandra
and the author Śyāmilaka, it is possible, and
7
Deszoƒ and Vasudeva, 2009, p. 46-47: Ea hi sa Bālhika Kākāyano bhiag Aiśānacandrir Hariścandraś …… ita evābhivartete
8
The authorship of the River of Kings is more complicated than suggested here. See Obrock and Einicke 2013 for recent schol-
arship.
9
Stein (1900: 1.88–93) surveyed the king’s life and importance
683
in my view likely, that they refer to the same
person.
6. THE RIVER OF KINGS
The historical chronicle of Kashmir, the
River of Kings (Rājataragiī ) by Kalhaa (fl.
ca. 1100–1150), also described a physician from
Bactria who visited Kashmir.8 This event is placed
during the reign of King Lalitāditya Muktāpīa.9
King Muktāpīa flourished in the period CE 699–
755 (Stein, 1900: 1.88). In the River of Kings, a
Bactrian called Cakua arrives in Kashmir,
where, according to Kalhaa, he founded a
Buddhist stūpa and two monasteries (vihāra), one
of them in Śrīnagar (Stein, 1900: 1.90). Cakua
was also a magician (Stein, 1896: 19). His brother
Kakaavara was an alchemist (Bladel, 2011:
70). Kalhaa himself said that he had visited
Cakua’s Vihāra in Śrīnagar, and saw the Buddha
statue there that King Muktāpīa had caused to
be transported from Magadha on the back of an
elephant (Stein 1896: 20). Pleasingly, Cakua’s
visit to Kashmir was separately recorded by the
Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Wùkōng ( , d. CE
812), who visited Kashmir during CE 759–763.
Twenty-seven years after returning home from
Kashmir, he narrated his travels and observations
to the monk Yuen-tcha, who wrote it as a book
that has survived (Lévi and Chavannes, 1895). In
Kashmir, Wùkōng took vows and devoted himself
to pilgrimages and the study of Sanskrit for four
years. He observed more than three hundred
monasteries in the Kashmir valley, nine of which
he names. One of these, he said, was called the
Cakuavihāra, “Cakua’s Monastery” and was
built by the Cakua of Tuhhkhāra (Stein, 1896:
20 ff. and Rājataragiī IV 211–16, 246–64, 361
(Stein, 1900: 1.143–7, 3.52–4)). The sources note
684 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE

that the Bactrian royal family had founded many
Buddhist sacred places.10 Wùkōng also mentioned
two other monasteries in Kashmir that were
founded by Tokharian nobles (Stein, 1896: 21 f.).
These events suggest that strong connection
existed between Tokharians, that is Bactrians, and
the Kashmir valley and its Buddhist culture.
It is not only literary evidence that shows
connections between Ayurveda and the physicians
of Balkh, or the diaries and chronicles that describe
Bactrians visiting Kashmir to study Sanskrit and
build vihāras. We also have physical evidence of
manuscripts. Bladel (2011, p. 56) has noted that,
“The Sanskrit manuscripts at Shahr-i Zohak, a
ruined castle 15 kilometres east of Bamiyan,
included medical texts.”11
7. BARMAKIDS AND PRAMUKHAS
In a path-breaking scholarly contribution,
Bladel (2011) has provided a definitive
clarification of the Bactrian background of the
Barmakids. As he has reminded us, the Barmakids
were a family of senior administrators and district
governors who functioned at the heart of the
Abbasid court in Baghdad, during the crucial early
centuries of Islam.12
Thanks to van Bladel’s research, we now
know that the frequent references in older
literature to the Barmakids being Persian or
Zoroastrian are imprecise.13 They were, rather,
Buddhist Bactrians. Gibb and Kramers (1986–
2002: v.2, p.17) state the history succinctly, and
more or less correctly when they say:
The Barmakids [q.v.] are usually described as
Persians, but they were of a very different kind
from the Khurasanian rebels who followed Abu
Muslim. Their religion before conversion to Islam
was neither Zoroastrianism nor any of its heresies,
but Buddhism, and they belonged to the
aristocratic, landowning priesthood of the Central
Asian city of Balkh, an ancient capital whose
imperial and commercial traditions provided a fund
of experience to the ruling class of its citizens. It
was after the foundation of Baghdad that Khalid
al-Barmakī appeared as the right-hand man of al-
Mansūr, and thereafter he and his descendants
developed and directed the administration of the
Empire, until the dramatic and still unexplained
fall of the Barmakids from power under Harun al-
Rashīd in 803.

Pramukhas Caliphs

“The” Pramukha

al-Saffa 650

Khālid

al-Mansūr (fl. ca. 714-775) 700

Yaya al-Mahdi (r. 775-785)

al-Fadl Ja’far Harūn ar-Rashīd (r. ca. 786-809) 800

Fig. 5. Barmakids and Caliphs

10
Stein (1896.: 1.90) noted that details of Wùkōng’s evidence are probably supported in Chinese documents and inscriptions from
the same period. He referred to Lévi and Chavannes 1895; Stein 1896 for further discussion.
11
Bladel refers to Pauly (1967) on this point.
12
van Bladel uses especially al Kirmāī’s account of the time (Bosworth 1994).
13
Such assertions are widespread in secondary literature. E.g., Takim 2006: 51: “The Barmakids were a Persian family of secre-
taries and wazirs who served the early ’Abbassid caliphs in different administrative capacities.”
 FROM BALKH TO BAGHDAD
Fig. 5 shows how the family generations
of Barmakids and Baghdad Caliphs were
imbricated. The historical memory of this multi-
generational collaboration between Caliphs and
Barmakids became the stuff of legend and is
transmitted, through The One Thousand and One
Nights even to the present, in the figure of Walt
Disney’s Jafar, the evil magician and vizier
appearing in the 1992 film Aladdin (Fig. 6).14
Fig. 6. Disney’s Jafar, the evil vizier. Aladdin, 1992
8. A NOTE ON “PRAMUKHA”
Ever since the article “Iranica” by Bailey
(1943), it has been generally accepted that Arabic
“Barmak” ( ) is to be derived from Sanskrit
“pramukha.” According to Sircar’s authoritative
Indian Epigraphical Glossary, a pramukha is a
rank term known from Kalachuri-Chedi
inscriptions (6th–12th centuries) as the name of “a
14
An accessible account of this history is provided by Marozzi (2015: ch. 2).
15
Sircar 1966: 256, referring to Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum v. 4.
16
Citing Epigraphia Indica v. 28.
17
The grant, called “Nagardhan Plates of Svamiraja: (Kalachuri) Year 322” (no. 120, plate XCIX),” consists of three copper
plates, discovered in 1948 in Nagardhan, a small village near Ramtek in the Nagpur district. Coordinates N 21.34423, E
79.31699
685
member of the executive committee of a
corporation”.15 Sircar also noted that the term is
“probably the same as pradhānin,”16 which in turn
is the same as pradhāna (Sircar, 1966, p. 254).
Sircar’s Glossary cited epigraphical evidence
showing that the term pradhānin could mean, in
different contexts, “a governor, minister or
president; noble or courtier,” “a high executive
officer, same as pradhāna”, or “a village
headman” (Sircar, 1966, p.254). The title
mahāpradhānin often meant “the chief minister
or administrator; same as Mahāpradhāna and
Nāyaka” (Sircar, 1966, p.254).
According to the Corpus Inscriptionem
Indicarum 4, (Mirashi, 1955: 1.clxx, 2.612, 614,
616n) “pramukha” is equivalent to “kāryacintaka”
“one who worries about duties” [= “a member of
the executive committee of a corporation” (Sircar,
1966, p.150.)].
The Kalachuri grant mentioning the title
pramukha is datable to 19 March CE 573 (Mirashi,
1955: 2.613).17
The title “Pramukha” continued in use in
India for at least a millennium. Gode described
evidence that one Kabhaa Bakhale was the
leader (pramukha) of Karhāe Brahmans in
Benares between 1550 and 1600 (Gode n.d.: 16.).
The family known to Arabic authors as “al-
Barmakī” was in fact a family of hereditary
Pramukhas, administrators of the Nava Vihāra in
Balkh. Captured during the Arab expansion into
Bactria, and transported via Syria to Baghdad, they
rose to positions of power at the Abbasid court
second only to the Caliphs themselves.
686 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
9. INDIAN MEDICINE IN BAGHDAD AND THE
FOUNDATION OF THE B–IMA– RISTA– N
Van Bladel has also shown much more
precisely than was previously understood that the
Khalid al-Barmakī’s father was educated in
Sanskrit śāstrika knowledge in Kashmir, probably
before 709 CE, and that this included studies in
philosophy, astrology and medicine (Bladel, 2011,
pp. 69–72).
Van Bladel’s second major discovery is
that the al-Barmakī family’s first language was
Bactrian.
There can be little doubt that, before arriving in
Syria, Khalid’s first language was Bactrian, the
language of both his parents, and that his first
religion was that of the Nawbahar, Buddhism
(Bladel, 2011, p.72).
At the Baghdad court, successive caliphs
commissioned successive Barmakids to develop
Sanskrit scholarship in Baghdad. This involved
bringing both scholars and Sanskrit texts to
Baghdad, and translating these works into Persian
and Arabic. In a more recent contribution, van
Bladel (2015) has explored the reasons why the
caliphs of Baghdad in the eighth century would
have thought it a good idea to bring Sanskrit
pandits to Baghdad. Van Bladel’s suggestion is
that they were strongly influenced by the model
of the Chinese Tang court, that was the major
power on the caliphs’ eastern border. The Chinese
government at this time had endowed Indian
scholarship, in particular astronomy, with special
status. It was this that al-Manūr, the Caliph in
Baghdad, was emulating.
In the global history of medical
institutions, the history of hospitals is particularly
important. One of the most famous early hospitals
in western medical history was the Bīmāristān
founded in Baghdad in the eighth century. Shefer-
Mossensohn and Hershkovitz (2013, 282 ff.) have
surveyed the historical explanations surrounding
the founding of this Bīmāristān of Baghdad (cf.
Dols, 1987). First, it has been explained as an
Umayyad institution. Second, it has been
explained as an ‘Abbāsid institution founded by
Hārūn al-Rashīd. One concept here is that the
‘Abbāsid’s were interested in providing an Islamic
answer to Christian charitable institutions.
Building on van Bladel’s work, Shefer-
Mossensohn and Hershkovitz have presented a
compelling third argument that considers the
Indian cultural influence at the Abbāsid court to
have been pivotal for the creation of the famous
Bīmāristān hospital of Baghdad (Shefer-
Mossensohn and Hershkovitz, 2013). Shefer-
Mossensohn and Hershkovitz propose that the
Bīmāristān of Baghdad was an ‘Abbāsīd
institution established by the Barmakids. The
authors give evidence that there were in fact two
early hospitals in Baghdad, one aligned with the
second explanation, and personally patronised by
Hārūn al-Rashīd, and another set up under the
aegis of the Barmakids.
Shefer-Mossensohn and Hershkovitz draw
on evidence from within the Islamic tradition,
especially the writings of the biographer al-Nadīm
(d. 995 or 998, Baghdād, wrote Kitāb al-Fihrist),
to show that Yayā had invited Indian physicians
to Baghdad to work in the hospital that he founded
(Dodge, 1970). From al-Nadīm and also the earlier
judge and author Ibn Qutayba (828–889) we
discover that Indian medical texts such as the
Compendium of Caraka, the Compendium of
Suśruta and the Siddhasāra of Ravigupta were
translated in Baghdad under Yayā’s patronage.
In particular, the Compendium of Caraka
was translated by an Indian physician called
Manka (or Makha), during the reign of Harūn
ar-Rashīd (r. ca. 786–809) (Meulenbeld, 1999–
2002: 1A, 116). This was just the time at which
the first hospitals were built in Baghdad. And we
know that Caraka’s compendium actually contains
a description of how to build and equip a hospital.
Here is the Compendium of Caraka’s
description of how to build and equip a hospital,
 FROM BALKH TO BAGHDAD
that dates at the latest from the second or third
century CE:18
I shall now point out in brief the various supplies.
Thus, an expert in the science of building should
first construct a worthy building. It should be
strong, out of the wind, and part of it should be
open to the air. It should be easy to get about in,
and should not be in a depression. It should be out
of the path of smoke, sunlight, water, or dust, as
well as unwanted noise, feelings, tastes, sights, and
smells. It should have a water supply, pestle and
mortar, lavatory, a bathing area, and a kitchen.
After that, one should select the staff of soup and
rice cooks, bath attendants, masseurs, people to
help patients with getting up and sitting down, and
herb grinders. They should be good- natured, clean,
well-behaved, loyal, practical, and pious. They
should be skilled in nursing, and accomplished in
all treatments. They should not be reluctant to work.
The attendants should be able to sing, play
instruments, and perform recitations, as well as
being skilled in verses, songs, stories, legends, and
ancient lore. They should be pleasant and able to
anticipate. They should know the where and when
of things, and be generally sociable. There should
be bustard-quails, grey partridges, hares, black-
buck, Indian antelope, black-tails, chinkara, sheep,
and a nice, healthy milk cow with a live calf and
good arrangements for grass, shelter, and drinking
water.
There should be dishes, cups, water barrels, jugs,
pots, pans, saucepans, large and small jars, bowls,
platters, spoons, straw mats, buckets, an oil pan,
churns, leather, cloth, thread, cotton, wool, and so
forth. There must be beds and seats, and so on,
with vases and receptacles placed near them. Their
coverlets, quilts, and pillows should be neatly
made, and they should have bolsters. These are to
make it easier to apply treatments involving lying
down, sitting down, oiling, sweating, massage,
balms, showers, massage ointments, vomiting,
purges, decoction enemas, oil enemas, purging the
head, urine, and faeces. There should be smooth,
rough, and medium grinding stones with well
irrigated uppers. Knives and their accessories must
be supplied, as well as pipes for smoking, tubes
for enemas and douches, a brush, a pair of scales,
and a measuring instrument. There must be supplies
18
Ca.sū.15.6–7 (Ācārya 1981: 93–4). For the full arguments regarding the date of Caraka’s Compendium, see Meulenbeld 1999–
2002: 1A: 105–116
687
of ghee, oil, fat, marrow, honey, sugarcane treacle,
salt, kindling, water, mead, molasses rum, liquor,
fermented barley-water, fermented bean-husk
water, blended liquor, spirits, curds, sour cream,
watered buttermilk, The fermented rice-water, and
urine. There must also be supplies of śāli rice, sixty-
day śāli rice, mung beans, green gram, barley,
sesame, poor-man’s pulse, cottony jujube, grapes,
white teak, phalsa, myrobalan, emblic, belliric
myrobalan, as well as the various kinds of drugs
used during oiling and sweating.
There should be drugs for throwing up, soothing,
and those which have both effects [purging and
emetic], as well as medicines well-known for
constipating, for kindling the digestion, digestives,
and those which remove wind.
All these supplies, as well as anything else that
might be needed in an emergency, should be
reckoned up and provided for the purpose of
treatment. And items of food over and above the
prescribed diets should also be laid on.
Later verses in this chapter turn to the
detailed treatment of the patient, and show that
the patient is being treated on a bed, attended by
family and professional staff.
Descriptions also show the patient being
taken to a draught-free room where he is asked to
lie down, and is given instructions about
maintaining good health through a balanced
lifestyle (v.15). It is assumed that the patient will
be present for several days, since there are
treatments prescribed for “the evening or the next
morning” and detailed descriptions are given for
the contents of twelve consecutive meals (v.16).
It is only after seven more nights that the patient
may once again meet his friends and family and
be permitted to resume his normal duties (v.17).
Through a ring of cultural influences from
Kashmir to Balkh through the Buddhist
Pramukhas, we can trace the movement of
Caraka’s hospital description to Baghdad, where
it is likely to have formed the blueprint the earliest
Islamic hospital.
688 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
10. CONCLUSIONS
• The Compendium of Caraka demonstrates a
clear knowledge of physicians from Balkh,
who form part of the senior experts who
discuss and form Ayurvedic conceptions.
• The Pramukhas of Navavihāra in Balkh were
originally Buddhists, trained in Sanskrit
śāstras in Kashmir.
• When in Baghdad, the Pramukha lineage of
viziers maintained connnections with India
and invited Indian scholars to Baghdad to
translate Sanskrit śāstrika works, including
Ayurvedic treatises, into Arabic or Persian.
• The works known to the Pramukha viziers
would have included the Compendium of
Caraka, that contains a description of how to
build and equip a hospital.
• The Baghdad hospital built and run by the
Pramukha lineage was almost certainly
inspired by the blueprint provided by the
Compendium of Caraka.
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